How to Save the Internet by Nick Clegg

Bodley Head, September 2025

Why?

Whatever might be said about Nick Clegg, his combination of experience at the top of politics and at the top of a global tech firm is unique, so he must have something to say that's worth a listen.

Enjoyment factor

This book is heavily co-written (the co-writer is duly acknowledged) and doesn't present the most succinct argument in the world, but nevertheless, it offers some valuable take-aways which haven't been given enough credit amongst a certain cadre of tech-lash-driven reviewers.

Firstly, at no point does Clegg position this book as the inside story of his time at Meta. Naturally he covers this period of his career, and I'm sure that Meta's lawyers took a good look over the manuscript, but he nevertheless makes some balanced points about the impossible situation in which tech firms find themselves which haven't been widely acknowledged.

This, however, is really beside the point. This isn't a book about social media, or whether tech firms are "good" or "bad". Clegg's thesis is much broader than that: the open internet itself is under threat. Unless we start to talk seriously about that, the rest is detail.

It left me thinking ...

That we need to get beyond the panic around techno-determinism (which accompanies every new technology) and see the wood for the trees.

Clegg argues that the internet as we know it only succeeded because it happened to be founded by a liberal democracy (the US) in a particular geopolitical climate (the liberal, pro-global mid-twentieth-century).

He describes it as "an unprecedented exercise in global, civic and industrial co-operation ... the ultimate expression of liberal democratic values."

All of which can't be taken for granted in a world which is tending away from global co-operation. And without the open internet, the conversations around various individual technologies become redundant.

Clegg concludes that before anything else, what is needed is an international treaty which addresses two components: (i) open data flows and (ii) a mechanism whereby the ingredients of AI can be shared and utilised. Current attempts at regulation are too closely correlated with a pre-digital society so can't work. He draws a comparison with Bretton Woods: an entirely fresh agreement is needed for a new era which as ripped up the rule book.

An imperfect book, for sure - but one which I don't feel has been given its due credit.